City Council Member Joseph Addabbo (D-Queens) glided over the green linoleum floors at the Howard Beach Senior Center, stuffing fliers about an upcoming town hall meeting into every wrinkled hand he saw.
Big band music played softly in the background. Red, white and blue streamers dangled festively from the ceiling.
The scene was ripe for politicking.
One man in a tan nylon vest asked Addabbo to name the prominent state senator who had just retired.
“Joe Bruno?” Addabbo asked, referring to the departed Senate majority leader.
“No, the other guy,” the man said.
“Serf Maltese?” Addabbo said. “I don’t know if he’s retiring—but I am running against him.”
“He’s retiring,” said another man in a blue polo, laughing asthmatically. “Oh, he’s retiring!”
Maltese, a 10-term Queens Republican, is not, in fact, retiring, but engaged in an intense fight to hold onto his seat, which spans Maspeth and Sunnyside in the north to Ozone Park and Howard Beach in the south.
That is what he was up to a few days earlier, less than a mile away. With the session in Albany over, Maltese had finally embarked on the beginning of his own ground campaign, holding a small town hall meeting at the Ozone Howard Little League field—one of seven meetings he holds annually to inform residents about government services available to them.
As sprinklers watered the baseball fields outside, Maltese was inside, working the crowd: seniors, veterans, men and women with Italian accents and cell phones with The Godfather theme music ring tones.
In the corner of the meeting hall, Maltese had put a seven-foot-tall, nearly life-size photograph of the Senate chamber to use as a backdrop for photos with attendees.
“Yes, we’re traveling to Albany,” he said, smiling broadly. “Saves you driving four hours.”
In November, Maltese will find out whether these same smiling residents will vote to send him back to the Capitol. But if he was concerned about his campaign that night, he did not show it. His arm around a woman in a green dress, Maltese was all one-liners.
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“Looks like we’re getting married,” he said as the camera snapped. She smiled.
In 2006, Albert Baldeo, a relatively unknown Democrat, shocked many by coming within 800 votes of defeating Maltese without any support from the Queens county party. Baldeo is running again this year. He plans to stay in the race even if Addabbo, the party-preferred candidate, wins the primary, by seeking out a third ballot line.
Addabbo considered running against Maltese in 2006 but opted not to, reportedly because of a truce between Democrats and the senator. This year, the Council member said there was no way a deal could be struck. If Democrats grab the Senate majority in November, as Addabbo hopes, district residents will need to be represented by a Democratic senator, to do best.
Several events in the last few months have changed the dynamics of the race. The City Council slush fund scandal has opened up a new line of attack on Addabbo. Bruno’s decision to step down as majority leader led many to speculate that a Democratic takeover is all but certain. The Queens Democratic Party has made claims that Baldeo sought a judgeship in exchange for dropping out of the race. And Maltese’s campaign was emboldened by Republican Anthony Como’s victory in a special election for the City Council district that overlaps Maltese’s.
For several months, Addabbo practically had the district to himself. But with the end of the legislative session in Albany, he now shares the district with Maltese, who plans to crisscross the area, touting discretionary funds he has won for various community groups. Addabbo said he plans to employ a similar strategy.
“Whether Serf’s in the district, whether Baldeo’s around,” Addabbo said, “it doesn’t matter.”
Maltese disagrees. By spending the summer cultivating his base, which includes Irish and Italian Americans, conservatives, seniors and veterans, he believes he will be able to ward off both challengers. Just as important, though, will be his outreach out to new voters, mainly immigrants who have flooded his district in the past decade, in an effort to offset the appeal of Baldeo, an Indo-Guyanese lawyer.
“I am aware the district is changing,” Maltese said. “I also believe that they feel that they are well-represented by me, no matter what their ethnic background.”
All three candidates are looking to beef up support in the immigrant community—a crucial voting block in a district where the foreign-born population has jumped from 29 to 39 percent since 1990.
Addabbo, who has been criticized by his opponents for not having a diverse enough staff, said his appeal in the immigrant community is solid.
“I have one qualification when it comes to staff, and that is, when they answer that phone, they have to be as dedicated as I am,” Addabbo said. “I’m color-blind.”
Although Addabbo trailed in campaign cash for the first part of the year, he said his fundraising is on target. But regardless, he said, his focus is on issues, not money.
Baldeo, on the other hand, cites his fundraising as an advantage over the two party stalwarts. He raised almost $400,000 by January, thanks in large part to a $300,000 loan to his own campaign.
Baldeo has been more freewheeling with his criticisms, accusing Addabbo of being an unserious candidate, running just to keep Maltese in office. He also blasted the Democratic county organization, which did not consider him for an endorsement, as a “country club engaged in cronyism.” Taking a theme from the presidential campaign of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, Baldeo said if he loses the primary, he would run on an independent ballot line called “the Hope and Change Party.”
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Maltese, for one, is delighted by the split between the two Democratic candidates. Between that and what he says have been new Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos’ (R-Nassau) assurances that his campaign will be a priority in the fall—and a commitment to spend up to $1 million protecting the seat—Maltese is feeling optimistic.
But the Democratic leadership has also focused on the race, with Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) going so far as to call Maltese’s seat “the tipping point” between a Democratic and a Republican State Senate.
“I like the fact that my constituents will feel that they are in the most important, hotly contested district in the City of New York,” Maltese said, responding to Smith’s assessment.
The senator corrected himself.
“Actually, he’s saying in the whole State of New York,” he said. “Even better.”
